The life and views of this Asian girl who slightly bent the convention set for herself and who set out to look for the happily ever after.

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Back from the interview

About the job interview:

After 2 seperate legs of flights from here to Charlotte, NC, and finally to Pittsburgh (with a overbooked and rerouted flight), I took the rental car and drove to Johnstown, Pa., this mountaineous town that houses some big name defense contracting firms, and I went to interview with a not so well known company. However unknown, this company owns this campus of buildings of big proportions.

I took a look at the town, it was a small town and I can't say that I got a sense of what people were like in the town. I did think it was kind of funny that two out of two gas station attendants to which I asked driving directions from all had missing upper front teeth, and mullets for haircuts. All the Chinese restaurants from Pittsburgh to Johnstown are called Jade Garden. Overall, the town looked kind of scenic, like the rolling hills featured on a microsoft computer screensaver.

I interviews with a total of 5 people, from the manager (the one who first saw my resume), to his boss (who thought that I had a lot of military intelligence experience.), an analyst (this bald-headed guy who is a Arabic linguist who had spent 20 years in the army.), the human resources lady (this young twenty-something gal who went over their benefits packages with me. When I asked her what people in town did for fun, she was at a loss.), and last but not least, the security guy who took my info. to check up on whether or not I had a security clearances. ( I think all of them were ex-military, with the exception of the human resources lady.)

They were all friendly, but I wasn't sure exactly if I was the person that they were looking for. I got the impression that they wanted someone who has a lot more dealings with the military intelligence community (I'm just an accidental tourist, thanks to my language), and just someone who is a lot more technically aware. (I could be wrong though, I'm not always the best at reading people and what's spinning in their heads.) I do have to thank them for taking the trouble to fly me over, put me up in a hotel, and giving me a chance to interview!

They are supposed to tell me whether or not they wanted me to work for them in about two weeks time. I'm not going to worry about what the result of it will be, not really. I guess since in my mind I got this interview by total accident, if I get this job, it'll be a total accident too! I'll let y'all know when I hear something!

I was so tired when I came home last night, with just myself and not my luggage. Due to the re-routing of flight, I didn't get my luggage until sometimes this morning. (I was supposed to fly from Pittsburgh to Philadelphis, then from Philly back to Kansas City. Yet the flight to Philly was not going to leave until 3 hours after the supposed departure time, so I got the gate agent to put me on a flight to D.C. and then fly back to KC from there. That happened, but the luggage followed the original flight route. I wonder if this is a normal thing when it comes to flying with U.S. Air.....)